


The Watford Gardening Club

by BitterTeaBouquet



Category: Carry On - Fandom, Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: A little bit of gore, Angst, Baz pov, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Lots of thinking and being dramatic, M/M, Mystery, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Slow Burn, magic flowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 00:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17693909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterTeaBouquet/pseuds/BitterTeaBouquet
Summary: Simon Snow, the dumbest man alive, fell into a quarry. As it happens, on the way down, he saw a flower that when eaten, could take someone past the veil and talk to the dead. A flower that Baz thought was a myth. The only way it seems Baz could get to the flower is through the Watford Gardening Club. Will Baz risk his life (and Simon's) to talk to his mother again? Only time will tell.





	The Watford Gardening Club

**Author's Note:**

> The art on the next page is done by the lovely Thecatis on Tumblr! https://thecatis.tumblr.com/ I want to thank her so much for her time spent working on this, as it means the world to me. I hope you enjoy the Fic!

It started when the world’s greatest idiot fell into a forgotten quarry on the edge of the wavering wood. I’d relished the silence of our room for those few days, only occasionally wondering and worrying where Snow had carried himself off to. I’d first thought the Mage had sent him on another hopeless errand. I had been proven wrong when I was racing to the catacombs for a fast drink. My hair had been a wild mane, my pyjama’s still on underneath my more respectable clothes. His scream found me when I was halfway down the spiral staircase. After that I’d nearly flew myself down the steps, wishing myself not to fall.  
I will never forget what was at the bottom of the staircase. It was something my worst nightmares couldn’t have concocted. Snow was on the ground, his wand not in his hand but sticking through his arm. He had been covered in blood, I still remember how sticky it’d felt on my fingertips. I can’t remember anything past the first few spells but now that I think of it, I don’t think even the most powerful mage could’ve taken me from his side. Luckily when the Mage came, no one tried.  
\--  
Bunce is sitting at my table in the library when I get there. This isn’t a surprise, she does this whenever she wants to talk to me without Snow knowing. The other times, I’d had a small idea of what she would say, but I haven’t seen her or Snow since the accident. Worry crawls up my throat as I envision her accusing me of hurting him.  
I saunter up to her with a grim smirk on my face, “Bunce. What do you want?” Straight to the point. I don’t want any meandering around the topic, we’ve been assigned a project in magical history this week, and I don’t want anything less than an A.  
She grimaces down at her books and turns to me, “I need you to keep this a secret, Basilton,” she locks me with a stare, “I mean a deep secret.”  
I put down my textbook and sit down next to her. I give her my full attention, wanting answers regarding Snow more than anything. What if he doesn’t recover? No one has heard anything about his condition other than ‘he is alive’. I know that nothing but me could kill Snow, but what if Snow’s own stupidity kills him first? How do you fall into a quarry? It must be huge.  
“Spit it out then,” I spit. She wipes a small drop of my saliva from her cheek and I have the decency to feel a little embarrassed.  
“He was able to speak today,” She stares off at the table, more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen her, “Do you remember how he sounded in the first year? How he barely spoke and bit his tongue all the time?”  
I nod and she looks at me, so I nod again just for good measure. I can see where the conversation is going. I give a silent prayer to whatever fucked up magic gods there are to save Snow's mouth. If not for me, then for the rest of the world.  
“It’s bad, Baz. It’s really, really bad.” She runs her fingers through her hair and leans back. Her normally up-turned mouth has been set in a frown and her smiling eyes are red and puffy. Even her cheeks look slimmer somehow. More deflated. I don’t know how to respond.  
Luckily, she continues, “But that was only part of what I came here to say,” She takes a breath and opens her textbook to reveal two messy, childish drawings. She gives them to me with a slightly shaky hand.  
The first is what looks like a man. Tall, long fingers and face, and a wretched grin.  
“Snow is a horrid artist,” I tell her earnestly.  
She gives a soft chuckle and replies, “You try drawing with a wand through your arm,” I wince but cover it by pretending to study the drawing.  
“What does this have to do with anything? Is baby Snow having nightmares?” I nearly added again.  
She glares then passes me the second drawing, “This one is something I think you might recognize,”  
On a dirty napkin in blue crayon Snow has drawn a flower. Four thick petals appear to be peeled back to reveal three styles and three stigma’s that are a deep blue with a messy white glow around them. I have seen this flower before. I look at Bunce, who has been politely waiting.  
Then it clicks.  
“Kurara,” Her eyes light up and she nods.  
“No one knows a lot about them. Even so, I checked out every book I could find,” So she has. She hefts her bag on the table and shows me four hardcovers. I don’t need them.  
“What do you know about it?” I ask tentatively. I need to know what I should and shouldn’t share. I know most of the information about Kurara like I know my own good looks. Still, if I let something from the manor’s (mostly forbidden) library slip, I can’t think of what the consequences might be. Well, I can. I just don’t want to.  
She leans in and pretends to mull over the same history textbook I have in my bag, then softly speaks, “It can be deadly. If ingested it sends the consumers mind out of their body and through the veil for a short period of time, but it’s risky. If too much is taken, the consumer’s connection gets cut and their mind is lost forever. The body can last a few days and then it dies.” She concludes with a little wave of her hands and a small frown.  
“Huh,” I murmur, wondering why she had brought the books if she knew so much about it. It is well known that the Bunce family is smart, and I should think that they have their own tome of forbidden books. If so, why does she need more of the same information? More references perhaps?  
I try to play my question slow as if I was simply curious for more information and ask, “Is there anything more in the books that you don’t know?”  
She shrugs, “Yes and no. Most of what is written is speculation. Finding patches of Kurara is so rare considering only one flower seems to grow at a given time.” Her eyes trail down to the drawings clasped in my hands and she clicks her fingers against the table. Bunce always looks as if she is running out of time like she needs to fit every movement into every second until there are no more seconds to spare. I can understand how she must feel, but it’s tiring to be around her.  
“So, what was the second thing?”  
“What?”  
“You said that Snow’s fucked up voice isn’t the only thing you came here to gossip about,” I snap. I’m unnerved by this calm conversation. Bunce and I haven’t exchanged this many words in all the time we have been at this blasted school. She grinds her teeth and glares at me, already slanted eyes going nearly invisible in her face. I relax in the normalcy this grants me.  
She jerks back and starts to shove her books in her bag, “The Mage’s ban on anyone going into the wood,” She shot me a look then paused, “Oh and this.”  
Her lips curl upward in a tiny sneer and she pulls a yellow flyer out of her skirt pocket. She slams it on the table in front of me. In the time that I grab it and look down, she has already taken all her things and left. The only thing she forgot was the napkin, which is still clutched in my other hand.  
I look down after I knew she’s out of the library. Big, black letters are scrawled across the top of the paper. They are slightly smudged and looks as if it was free handed.  
The Watford Gardening Club!!  
I nearly vomit in my mouth when I read it, but then I unclench my hand and force myself to look at the drawing. The flower. Kurara. The thing that used to let me sleep at night from the ages five to seven when I thought miracles existed.  
A chance to talk to my mother again.  
-  
I drag myself to my room. Today the halls seem to grow longer and the spiral staircase never-ending. It’s only luck that I get myself to my door before my eyes shut. I lean on it with my things half-off my shoulders. It swings open and I fall through, dropping everything and stumbling before hitting my bed. I kick off my shoes before I fall into a pit of unconsciousness.  
Even though deep sleep envelopes me, I dream. Of stormy blue sky’s roaring above a field of wheat made of bright yellow paper. Two men run in the distance and somehow, I know that it’s Niall and Dev, running to the football pitch to kick around a ball and tell jokes. I turn and am faced with the back of a stranger. Someone small, scared but fierce. Blonde messy curls and plain blue eyes. Freckles and moles and a smile so wide but never directed at me. Simon. He faces me and grins, but not of happiness, of anger. When he looks down, I follow his eyes and see his wand through his arm. A single blue petal balanced on the wooden end.  
“Do you want it?” He asks me, his drawl strong and beautiful.  
“Yes,” I whisper.  
“Then go get it.” And off it flows. Off into the sea of yellow.  
I’m not angry when I wake. The dream wasn’t a nice one, but that hadn’t been the point. It was to teach me something. I sit up and stretch, my back and shoulders pop easily and loudly. With the lights off, it’s harder to find my bag, which I left on the floor. The pile is near the door and buried amidst my books and papers. I shake my head at my past self and sit down on the cool wood.  
I find both neatly folded at the bottom of my bag. I don’t bother to unfold them, I only need to know they are close. Opportunities await me in the morning, big ones. I won’t let my mother slip through my fingers again.  
-  
In the morning my mind is clear. A game plan already forming as I turn into the dining hall, but right now, scones and convincing Niall and Dev to leave me alone are more pressing. I sit down at the table and gave a brisk nod to the both, who aren’t morning people by any standards. I serve myself a grateful heaping of eggs and cherry scones. I alternate between drinking piping hot Full English Breakfast tea and hoovering in my food. Crowley I’m starving. A piece of me knows it isn’t hunger, but thirst, and I remind myself to go into the catacombs tonight and grab a few rats.  
Right as I wipe the last few crumbs from around my mouth, Dev finishes his coffee (He is barely a Brit) and Niall nearly finishes goggling Agatha. Dev and I exchange a look as he sighs when she flips her long blonde hair over her shoulder. She gives a willowy laugh at something Garret said and touches his hand. I notice that her nails are a matte blue today, perhaps she is thinking of Snow?  
“I don’t get it. What does he have that I don’t?” Niall whines into his palms. He lays his chin on the table and sniffs like a boy desperate for candy… or a blowjob.  
“Who? Snow or Garret?” I look at him, wondering the same thing he was. Niall is a nice, caring gent. Though I would never say that to his face. He is far better behaved then Dev or I, even though he gets the worst grades out of all of us. He has lots in common with Agatha. What I’m asking myself is not what they have that he needs, it’s what Niall has that Agatha doesn’t want.  
“Both!” He cries. He runs his fingers through his wavy hair and turns his soft brown eyes on me, “Do you think I have a chance with her?”  
I merely shrug and start to get up. As much as I care for Niall, I don’t have time for this today. I need to catch Mrs. Poltov before she goes out on an expedition with Bunce’s father. Another cold spot popped up in Wales, they are supposed to be out for the entire week investigating. I need to see her before then.  
“Whoa, Whoa! Where are you going?” Dev follows me as I bring my dishes to the counter. I try not to roll my eyes back into my skull. Why can’t they leave me alone when I want them to?  
“Homework,” I lie and that sheds me of him, for now.  
Halfway to the Herbology classroom, I pass some students who give me a few double takes. After the third time, I stop into a bathroom to check my looks.  
I step in and am hit by the strong scent of smoke. My eyes start to water as I make my way to the mirror, I can hear heavy breathing in the stall farthest away from the door. I don’t want to draw attention to myself but damn. This is the first time I have been close to Snow in weeks and resisting the temptation of making him go off is impossible. I bite down on my tongue and remind myself that I have a time-sensitive goal. I have a time-sensitive goal. A time. Sensitive. Goal.  
I glare at myself in the mirror, feeling the tension in the room rising and falling with Snow’s panicked breaths. I lick my lips and look at myself. Why would people be looking at me weirdly? It’s not as if walking fast warrants unwanted attention.  
My pale face is unmarked, no food or crumbs there. My eyebrows are as perfect as usual, strong like my mother’s but have an unusual smooth curve that apparently came from my great-grandmother. Pointed ears and straight white teeth, still there. Then what were they looking at? I get distracted by a sniff and a muffled sob, as well as my heart shattering into a million pieces, then go back to admiring myself.  
My clothes are in order. The same as any Watford student here. Bright colors, (another haggard breath and sob), Hideous socks, (He starts to move), Lumpy and warm jumper to keep the harsh winds away, (he fumbles the lock of the stall door), Stupid mandatory shoes that I had to spell to fit, (He’s opening the door), and a tie to top it all off. Nothing out of the ordinary.  
I know I should leave, especially since I am already late and there is huge chance that Mrs. Poltov is gone but I can’t resist not looking at him, even if it is through a glare. Even if he tells me to go fuck myself or what not. I haven’t seen him in what feels like months since he had laid bleeding in my arms (in my fucking arms!) and I’m not going to pass up this opportunity.  
He hobbles up to the sinks in his own time but doesn’t look at me. I start to retie my tie just for appearance's sake. I can see from here that his eyes are red, and he lost all the clambering weight he usually has. His eyes are hollow shells in his prominent cheekbones, still a plain blue. His hair flops forward when he leans over to wash his hands. He pushes them back and leaves droplets of water on his forehead. I imagine myself licking them off then biting his cheekbone.  
“What?” He whispers down at the sink.  
“Pardon?” I have to tear my eyes away from his hair and found Snow looking exasperated at me. And tired.  
He hits the sink with his hand and hisses, “What the fuck do you want?”  
I jump back but turn it into a graceful step forward, my lips turning up at his cheeks flushing and his eyes slowly filling with anger (light, emotion, something). I push my shoulders back and stand as tall as I can without looking like an idiot. I want to make him feel small, like a grain of sand and I am the oncoming wave. I want him to feel how other people feel when they are around him, tiny.  
“Temper Snow!” I pretend gawk. He rolls his eyes and aims a half-hearted growl at me.  
I finish my tie with a satisfying swoosh and say, “Yeah, you keep rolling your eyes, you might just find a brain back there someday.” I can feel his magic ooze off him in waves.  
He lets go of the sink and walks towards me. There isn’t enough space, and I’m not going to move, so we end up chest-to-chest. Our breaths are mixing, and I swear I saw a flicker of something in his eyes. I think about what might happen if I lean down and kiss him. He’d kill me, that, or he would kiss back. The latter scares me far more than it should.  
The moment doesn’t last. He backs away, lips tight and hands clenched, grabs his things off the floor and scuttles out of the bathroom like a disgraced cockroach. I kick the wall and sigh. That was slightly disappointing. Off to class then.  
-  
Miss. Poltov, in my right opinion, has the best classroom in all of Watford. Her room is half in the school and half out, the half in part if where she is sitting when I find her a few minutes after my run-in with Snow. As I enter the room, the temperature shifts from a comfortable cold to downright freezing but I shake it off when I see her lounging on a desk with a tank-top and formal capris on.  
“Mr. Grimm-Pitch, what do I owe the pleasure?” her thin lips curve up in a smile, the bright orange lipstick only adding to her charm.  
“I was wondering about the gardening club…,” I trail off to look at the overwhelming amount of plants on the numerous shelves around the room. Most of them are glowing a deep crimson, but some are a pale yellow. I make a mental note to ask her about that later, business first.  
She makes the “Ah” noise and then jumps down to the floor. She is a small lady with a large stature, the only thing bigger than her hips is her hair, which is always tied up in a large knot on her head with beads and scarfs hanging off it. Today she favours the red beads with matching dangly earrings that almost touch her shoulder’s they are so long. The dupatta scarf she always wears around her shoulders is spelled a pleasant orange and peach to match her makeup. I regret not taking another one of her classes after the mandatory one in my first year, the only reason why is because Herbology didn’t catch my attention the way the languages had. I think I would’ve stayed if she hadn’t been job-sharing with a teacher named Mr. Halaby. Everyone was happier when she came back full time after the accident. I get the sense that she was too, even though I didn’t see her much through that time.  
“I am quite the popular lady today is suppose! Are you looking to sign up or simply to learn?” She picks a clipboard off her desk and spins with a bright smile towards me.  
I smile back involuntarily and said, “To sign up. I- I need something else other than football.” She grins and passes me the board. I give my name and room number and then pass it back hesitantly. Would this be a good time to ask about the flowers? What about Kurara?  
Instead, I ask, “Popular? Are that many students interested?” I realize after I said it that it sounds as if I think this is a boring club and that no one would want to join but she didn’t take it that way at all, she just shrugs.  
“Only the seven- no, nine we have now. I’ve been trying to get people to join this thing since the start of the school year. I’m glad Miss. Bunce suggested the posters to me because here we have it, two new members in the past ten minutes!”  
My brows furrow and a solid rock forms in my stomach. Bunce had put up the posters and Snow had been so close…  
“Who was the other person?”  
She looks confused for a second then reply’s, “Why, it’s your roommate, dear.”  
It takes a whole ten more minutes to wrap up the conversation, most of those minutes I could barely control my thoughts and was completely scattered. Miss. Poltov sensed this, and she finally sent me off with a “Get some sleep, Basilton.” I don’t like that she worries about me like I’m her child or something. I barely talk to her, she shouldn’t be able to see through me so well.  
On the way to my room, I run into Niall, who’s sitting on the floor looking around and holding the left side of his head. When he catches sight of me he flashes a small smile then tries to get up. The keyword is tried. His knees buckle beneath him and he hits the ground like a bouncy ball.  
I drop my bags and sit down next to him, pulling out my wand, “What happened?”  
“I’m not sure…,” He mutters, “I was running to catch up with Dev and then I just fell down?” A flash of something passes through his face. I can only watch, slightly horrified, as his pupils start to grow and his light brown eyes become black vacant pits. In them I can see my own wide eyes, my mouth hanging open, and bright, sparkling bits of glitter sprinkled through my hair. Something catches my eye and just as Niall’s pupils shrink down to their normal size I glimpse a man behind me with a wide smile.  
We walk back to Niall’s room touching shoulders, both of us scarcely speaking and when we do it is in clipped, half sentences. There is something about the air and the feeling of the abandoned stone hallway that has me flicking my gaze behind us every few seconds. My trembling hand is still clenched around his jacket sleeve from where I’d yanked him off the ground only a minute ago and when I used it as leverage against his confused and dizzy body, directing him through doors and rooms. When we get to his room, the door is open and for a split second, I think that whatever had been behind me beat us to it, but then Dev clambers out with a sandwich hanging from his mouth and a football under his arm.  
Both of us release a breath and look at each other, then at Dev. I let a slightly insane laugh drip from my lips and shortly after Niall follows suit. Dev looks between us as if we both have grown two heads and after a few seconds of this, he rips the sandwich out of his mouth.  
“What the fuck, guys?” He looks a little worried but mostly annoyed as I push past him and drag Niall behind me. Dev follows indignantly and slams the door shut behind him. Niall and I flinch simultaneously when he did, that is when Dev realizes something may be wrong.  
I fling myself on to Dev’s messy bed and took a few deep breaths to calm my racing pulse. I still couldn’t shake the feeling of someone watching me, like I was some spinster woman in an old horror film. I sat up and looked around the room. Dev got himself seated on the floor, looking up at the pair of us with mild concern and Niall was pretty much passed out on his bed.  
“What the fuck guys?” Dev whispered. This time he looked more how I imagined myself looking right now, freaked out and confused.  
Before I could reply Niall sat up and said, “I think we just saw a demon.”  
-  
Snow being back in the room isn’t as weird as I thought it was going to be. I barely ever see him because he creeps around me and avoids me whenever he can. I’m not used to not bickering with him, every time I try he act as he had in the bathroom a week ago. This whole experience reminds me of the first year. It’s like I’m back there again, not understanding how the world works, Snow not talking to me, and fighting creatures every step of the way.  
We haven’t seen the “Demon” (what Niall and Dev have dubbed it) since the incident but I have spent most of my free time and evenings in the quiet of the library, researching and trying to label it. I roll my pencil between my fingers and look down at my finished sketch. It’s the third one that I have done and I think that they are getting better each time. I can recall the creature the more I look at pictures that aren’t it. I cast a glance down at the book open next to me, “Creatures in the United Nations for young magicians” and meet eyes with a creature that everyone had taken to call a Deer Woman. It’s self-explanatory what they look like and at first, I had blown them over because clearly, the Demon was a male and not half deer. But when I asked Niall what the lower half of the body looked like, he responded with “I can’t really remember.”  
My phone makes quiet pinging noises that draw me away from my thoughts. I turn off the alarm and pack what little I have on the table into my bag. The evening light hits my face as I stand up and I can hear the faint noises of a pick-up football game a few guys set up outside. When I turn to look through the tall towers of bookshelves to the door, I see a familiar figure crouching between two stacks. Most of their body is hidden in shadow, even though the setting sun is shining right at them. I take a few steps forward, trying to remember their name or even their gender. I can hear heavy breathing as I put my hand on the bookcase and lean forward. I open my mouth to say something, a hello or a “hey you!” but then my eyes focus to the dim light and I see that it was nothing but a knocked over pile of books. I blink a few times, going over to where I thought they had been and then left the library feeling more disoriented then I have in days.  
Miss. Poltov opens the door for me with one of her grand smiles dressed in bright lipstick. I enter the room and am met by six pairs of eyes, already seated and holding teas of various types. I give a polite apology to her and find my seat, which is unfortunately between Bunce and a girl a year younger than us, Jamie Fletcher.  
“Here,” Bunce passes me a map and spells a cup of tea warm for me. I scowl at her for her mother-ness, but thank her anyway and sip it in quiet appreciation. Snow is next besides her, looking like he just got dragged 7 kilometres behind a horse. I can only look at him through the corner of my eye without seeming odd, but I can see that his condition has not gotten any better since the bathroom encounter. His skin is pulled down and floppy against his cheekbones, his moles and freckles acting like lighthouses at midnight against it. His thin pink lips seem to be constantly pulled in and chewed on as if to stop him from talking or making noise. I suspect that this really is the reason if what Bunce had said about his speech is true. I have never wanted to hear someone’s voice more.  
“Now that we are all settled in, let’s begin on the real topic at hand,” Miss. Poltov puts her tea down and puts the clipboard on her lap, probably so she can use hand gestures, “The last meeting we only had a few of us, and I know that new people have joined but I think we should keep our objective the same.” I can tell who has been in the group for a while because they all nod slightly or make some motion to agree with her. Snow looks at Bunce and raises his eyebrows but she just waves him away.  
Fletcher raises her hand and says, “We should probably tell the new members the objective?” Miss. Poltov does nothing but nod and smile.  
Fletcher waits for a second then turns to Snow and I, “We’ve been trying to map the Wavering Wood. Mostly it was to record what flowers we could find, but because of what happened to Simon,” She smiles at him sheepishly, “We want to make sure no one gets hurt.”  
Fletcher pauses then looks at the other group members, “Did I forget anything?”  
Bunce gets up and passes a small stack of papers to the teacher, who replies, “That was great Jamie. We are going to add something to the objective. I’m almost certain that most of you know why Mr. Snow is present today, other than Penelope forcing him that is,” The other students laugh and Snow scowls at the ground. The same feeling I got when I found out Snow joined rose in my stomach, but somehow this was worse. I did join this group to find the Kurara. To find my mother. But I seriously doubt that Miss. Poltov would let me eat it, or even get near it. She isn’t stupid enough to fool and she knows the consequences.  
I’m not surprised when she says that they were going to take a break mapping the East side of the wood in exchange for the North, where Snow fell into the mysterious Quarry. No one reacts when she brings up the flower and there is even a patch of comfortable silence when she passes around the papers Bunce gave her. I wonder why no one is reacting then realize that Bunce must’ve warned them beforehand. Very polite of her not to give anyone a surprise like that. I only wish Fiona had done the same thing when I was a child. Maybe then I wouldn’t have spent so much time outside after dark, bruising my knees and falling into streams.  
I put my cup down like everyone else and read the information paper. It’s all the generic things that I’ve had memorized in three different languages for longer then I haven’t. I thought that we were going to read through it then get to the point A.K.A the reason I was here but was let down.  
“Mr. Grimm-Pitch, would you care to read through the paper for us? We’ll all follow along and ask questions after.” I must’ve looked seriously inversed in the paper because she calls my name again and nods down at my page.  
I clear my throat and start to read. “Kurara is a rare subspecies of the Spirit family. Most of the Spirit family have been noted as powerful hallucinations but some, like Kurara, are known to take the magic force or “soul” out of the magician and into the Spirit realm, or The Veil. To successfully travel to The Veil, the consumer must do one of two things. The first option is to put a freshly picked flower petal into a pot of boiling water. Once the petal dissolves, the consumer must drink the water immediately. The second option is to eat the petal raw. The first option is the safest, as the water dilutes the strength of the flower. However, taking the flower in any way has the chance of killing the consumer, as the tethers attaching the body to the soul can be lost and the person can die.”  
“Take a sip of tea Mr. Grimm-Pitch, you did wonderfully.” Miss. Poltov tells me, adjusting her blue dupatta and silver hoop earrings.  
I smiled shyly, “Are re-fills aloud?” She laughs and points her wand at my cup, which I recently picked up.  
“Blood is thicker than water,” She pushes magic through her words and I nearly spill my drink when it fills with boiling tea to the brim. My eyebrows raise a fraction, I have never seen that spell used for tea but I suppose like Make a wish it has multiple uses.  
“Now, I will read a segment of a private report I received recently. I know that a few of you have read this already, but information like this can’t be paraphrased.” She pauses and slowly starts, “Kurara has complex, deep root systems, making them unable to grow in patches. A discovery has been made however, that may be able to unprove this fact.”  
I sit up in my chair and start to pay far more attention than before. Research into Kurara has nearly stopped because of lack of access and too many casualties, but this is a new report, meaning more information. If what Snow saw wasn’t just one flower, but several, then my chances of getting a petal have fucktupled.  
“Secret gardens are a recent discovery, but when-,” She kisses her teeth and looks up, “Jim confessed his secret about a long-lost sister, three Kurara flowers grew.” She put’s down the paper and looked at everyone, well everyone specifically being me. I wish that she wouldn’t.  
It takes every drop of deception to fool her that I’m not freaking out. Like I didn’t know that I could’ve talked to my mom when I was a twelve-year-old depressed git who stupidly followed Snow into a circle of Walking stones and was transported into a garden more beautiful and dangerous than anything I could’ve ever known. I can’t blame past me, but I really wish I could go back and talk some sense into him. Maybe I would yell and say “Snow isn’t as important as Mom! Just spill all your secrets so I won’t be so fucked up and curious all the time okay?” Or maybe I would just smack him. Or both.  
I remember that father once told me not to dwell on “what if’s” and I try to pull myself out of it, but then I remember that he once told me that the dead weren’t as important as the living and I go back into the dark spiral again.  
“What- what’s a- ah a secret gar…den?” The question is butchered beyond belief and I can barely recognize it through the heavier-than-normal accent. Snow. I blink a few times then look at him, I don’t even intend to look like an asshole, though I guess I do because he scowls at me then turns his flushed cheeks at the ground.  
“That’s alright Simon, you’re allowed to ask questions,” and then the night continues like a bomb hasn’t been dropped on me. I can’t even mock Snow because I’m too enveloped in the possibility at multiple visits beyond The Veil. Planning is what Bunce would call it, Preparing is what Agatha would call it, but scheming seems right.  
First thing I do bright and early tomorrow is fine tooth comb the school library for any mention of a secret garden. Next, find out how to cheat, lie, and trick my way to my mother.  
-  
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing!” Dev yells across the table, slamming a book down and rubbing his hands roughly over his buzzed head. Niall flinches and rolls his eyes at Dev’s outburst. I just smirk down at the stack of books in my lap, half of them hundred-year-old encyclopedias about magical creatures and the other brand new articles on the possibilities of magical gardening. All of which have given me (as Dev put it) nothing.  
“I swear, he is as dumb as a stick. There is nothing in his brain! It’s just wasted space! Why of all people was he the chosen one! He is-,”  
“The worst chosen one ever to be chosen?” I finish for him, looking up and meeting his exasperated gaze.  
“Yes!” he cries. The librarian rounds the corner and gives us the ‘seriously? You guys are smarter than this’ look and hand gesture. He quiets down and then returns to complaining.  
“He will bring my mark down! Why didn’t they just put him with Penny? They are always together! Oh, this is going to be horrible!” he stretches the horrible out into a whine and after seconds of torture, Niall thankfully slaps him on the arm with a paperback.  
“Ow!” He cries and clutches his bicep in mock agony.  
“Stop complaining, he isn’t THAT bad,” Dev and I look at Niall in unison, then he adds, “You guys are assholes.”  
I shrug and say, “Can we get back to the point, please? The demon?”  
Niall bites his lip and says, “If we haven’t gotten anywhere so far, I doubt we will later.” He has lost his motivation, and to be honest, so have I. After two weeks all I have are some cheap kids drawings and random pieces of information about creatures that no one has heard of or seen in hundreds of years.  
“Maybe it was one of the monkeys?” A soft female voice calls from behind me. Niall jumps at the sound and if I hadn’t heard the voice I would know who it is just by the look on his face.  
“Agatha, wonderful of you to join us. How are you?” I roll my eyes. I can hear her shuffling her things, then she grabs a chair and sits between Niall and I. She flips her hair and Dev shoots me a look then literally just stands up and walks out of the library. Her perfect brows raise and she pretends to look offended, but then she lets it fall and turns back to Niall.  
“Why don’t you see what he is up to? Hm?” She pats his hand and motions him off. Niall shoots me a glance and I hope my blank expression doesn’t cover the “Don’t leave me! Please!” look that I am projecting through my eyes. Apparently, we aren’t as close as I think we are (or he is just being a prick) as he got up and left. We watch him go and I see her eyes flick down to his new jeans, ones I gave him last Christmas. She seems impressed (maybe the brand) and gives a slight nod, then turns back to me.  
“Out with it. I haven’t got the time for your games.”  
“I could say the same for you, Basilton,” I give her a blank stare then she sighs dramatically (everything about Agatha is dramatic) and continues, “I need you to do me a favour. Not just for me, but everyone.”  
I cross my arms and smirk, “Oh really? A favour? I wonder what it could be? Do you want to paint my nails and go shopping just to make your pathetic boyfriend pay attention to you?” I resist the urge to add, “And to me” on the end.  
Her face falls and she drops her voice to a whisper. “Do you always have to b- anyways… I want you to make Simon go off. I think he’s due, don’t you?”  
It’s not on a calendar, he is never ‘due’. Personally, I like him far away from the edge when he isn’t smoking and angry or sometimes sobbing. Then a little after the smoke comes the light so bright it makes the world go black. Nothing could schedule that type of power, nothing can make it happen but Simon. I tell her so and her brows climb like she was expecting me to do whatever she asked.  
“Why not?” She scoffs, pulling her lips back to form a shitty sneer. I decide to show her how it’s done.  
I slam my hands on the table and lean into her, channelling my inner Snow as I growl, “I. Am. Not. Your. Fucking. Puppet. How many signals do I have to put out? Fuck. Off.” Her eyes go wide and her mouth falls open, when I stand up she flinches back and I grin. I gather my things as she sits frozen in silence. I try not to skip out the door.  
A little line of light shines out at me as I climb the staircase to my room. My door is open a crack and I can hear Snow bumbling around inside, whispering. I creep up to the door and put my hand on it, ready to swing it open and demand what he is doing, maybe I will listen to him splutter, or maybe I will just call him a prat and shower… or maybe I will kiss him… even in my mind, I am hopeless.  
“Seth at Salisbury's sells thick socks,” He whispers again. And then again. Over and over I stand outside the door listening to him repeat some simple tongue twister, stumbling over the S of Salisbury every time.  
I yawn and push my way into the room. He stops immediately and looks up at me with obvious fear in his eyes. He is holding a thick book in his hand (an atlas or something) and has dirt coating the tips of his fingers and back of his hands, his wand is caked in mud too, tucked in his back pocket.  
“Where have you been?” He talks like he is struggling for breath, between words he pauses and takes a deep breath.  
“I could ask you the same question, Snow.”  
“I asked you first. Where were you?”  
I roll my eyes and walk to the bathroom, grabbing my towel off my chair as I do. “I don’t have time for this, I’m going to shower.”  
“You can’t escape me for long, Baz. I’m going to find out what you’re plotting.” That isn’t how he usually says it, he usually says it with malice. This time it’s slow and calculated, his eyes trailing up my body and landing with absolute fury on my face. This time he looks like he truly means it. I shut the bathroom door.  
When I get out he is already in bed, but there is something off. Something wrong. I push the feeling away (probably anxiety to be honest), close the window, and curl up in bed and fall asleep.  
-  
“Good evening, Basilton!” Miss. Poltov chirps once I walk through the door. This time I’m not late but a few minutes early, mostly to ask her a few questions on whether Orchids produce calm spiritual energy. (I afraid I’m becoming too invested in the prospects of magical gardening and how it can be reinvented to fit the new world By Diana Hawkman)  
Instead of getting into a heated debate, as soon as I sit down Bunce grabs my arm and pulls me out of my chair. For a girl, she has surprising strength. I wonder if the coach would let a girl on the pitch? I huff at her and try to speak but she hushes me and we tumble out into the hallway.  
“What was that?” I ask, straightening my clothes and sneering at her.  
“Are you and Agatha dating.”  
Sometimes when people ask you questions there isn’t one question there, it’s a bundle that you must unpack. It takes me no time at all to decode “Simon and Agatha broke up,” and “Agatha lied her tail off while doing it”.  
I restrain from grinding my teeth, “Not that it would be any of your business, but no. We’re not.”  
She nods and without another word turns around and goes back inside.  
When we both get settled it seems my time for debates is over and the meeting is due to start. Snow’s empty seat is glaringly obvious and distracting (and worrying and joyful) so while Miss. Poltov hands out biscuits Bunce shoves it aside and closes the circle.  
“Okay, So I hope that the messages I have been sending out have been received but if not, I’ll repeat them,” She goes into a cliché spooky announcers voice, “On November second we will- with The Mages permission of course- begin the hunt for Kurara! Err- I mean, broaden our mapping of the wood of course…,” Miss Poltov’ s face lights up and she uses wild hand gestures when talking, I almost feel guilty for what I’m going to do when I find the flower. She won’t even know that I found it unless I die.  
“November second!?” Bunce exclaims, “Not then! I’ll be away the whole weekend!” Her hands are balled in her short skirt and her teeth are bared in a vicious clench. I can’t see why she is so angry, it’s not like she has any motive for wanting to find the flower, for her it’s just walking around in the freezing cold for hours on end. Miss Poltov shakes her head apologetically and looks at Bunce sympathetically with a hint of something underneath, a ghost smile on her face and her eyes watery. It looks a lot like pride. That or intense relief.  
“Ah, Miss. Poltov? I can’t go either,” Jamie Fletcher says from beside me, curling her short brunette hair around her studded ears and shyly grinning, “I’m meeting my dad that weekend,”  
Now, this hit Miss. Poltov harder than the last, “Oh no! I knew I should’ve checked with you guys first… Oh well, nothing we can do now. Okay, why don’t we take a minute and Jamie, you rearrange the partners?”  
“Partners!” the word jumps out of my throat before I can stop myself. I feel my face flush as everyone turns to look at me but I refuse to look down. Instead, I turn to Miss. Poltov, “Do you think partners are necessary?”  
“We could cover more ground if we were by ourselves, we could just use walkie-talkies or Heed My words! To communicate with each other.”  
“You make some interesting points Basilton, ones that I’ve thought about myself, but in order to do this at all, we need to be together. Speaking of, Jamie? Are you finished?” Jamie nods down at her paper, all the sparkly metal in her ears send the light from the greenhouse side of the room dancing across the floor. I try to fight back before Jamie could speak, but Bunce pinches my thigh and I have to take the proper time to tell her what an inconvenience she is. Not out loud of course, just through a sneer.  
“Oh, it was easy! Baz and I were together, Simon and Penelope were together, Now it’s just the two of them!”  
“Oh, fuck no,” I whisper a little too loudly. Everyone turns to stare at me again, this time I don’t blush and they aren’t amused.  
Miss. Poltov turns to me and huffs, “Basilton. If you don’t like the way we do things here, then you can either get used to it or leave.” And with that and I feel my unfortunate fate sealed.  
-  
Ten days. I’ve got ten days to find out how to get Snow to leave me alone that night. That was what I was doing for the majority of the fifth year and yet once he gets his mind on something (Me) (plotting) he won’t leave it be. That’s one thing he has against me, once he gets his teeth in something, he’ll never let it go.  
I look across the classroom at him, his curly hair and his impossible moles. Will you go with my plan for once, Simon? Or will I have to beat it into you? I think at him too many questions that I know he won’t be able to answer and by the time it becomes obvious I’m staring at him, I’m not. I’m looking at the air in front of him, gazing off like some love-struck idiot instead of doing my Political Science homework. He turns to face me, all solemn and stone. I raise one of my eyebrows and roll my eyes like the situation is the other way around. Surprisingly, it works. His cheeks turn a deep red and he rubs furiously behind his ear to wipe away… dirt?  
Dev taps on my desk and gestures to the work, “Do you get any of this? I have to finish this in-class so my study period can be spent cooperating with a complete idiot,” He grimaces in Snow direction, and I swear I imagine my ears going up like a dogs at his complaining.  
“Dev. When is your project due?”  
He gives me a weird look, “The fifth, Why?” Check. And. Mate. I am a genius.  
“Baz, what? What is it? Why are you smirking?”  
“Let’s play football on the pitch instead,” His eyebrows pull in and he shakes his head, “For your study period. Let’s play football on the pitch instead.”  
“No, I said I had to meet him-,”  
“Crowley, you’re thick. Stand him up, I’m plotting for something.” I let a little bit of a smile come on to my face and he must see it because he smiles back.  
“Fine. But this better be good.” He shakes his head again and turns back to his work.  
I intend to do the same thing but Niall (on my other side) bumps my elbow with his. He looks nervous and I notice that he’s styled his hair so it would be slightly curly in the front and smooth in the back. It looks good on him. He gives me a half smile and leans in.  
“Do you think she’ll stand me up?”  
“Who?”  
“Agatha.”  
I pause, “What?”  
He makes an ‘oh’ noise and settles back into his chair. I wait for him to spit whatever he’s holding out but instead, he just looks at me with a smug grin and I realize he’s revelling in my ignorance. I roll my eyes and got back to work, he can revel all he wants but I have schemes to think about.  
“Fine, Baz, wait,” Niall pulls me close again, out foreheads nearly touching. My back is straining against the desk chair and I really wish that the school would invest in better seating.  
“Okay, so apparently -and at this point, it is total gossip- but Snow put all the pressure on Agatha and they-,”  
“I know they broke up Niall, but when did you ask her out and she actually said yes?” A small hole has formed in my chest ever since I heard they ended it. Maybe with Agatha out of the way, Snow might finally notice me. I know it will never happen, they’ll get back together and defeat the humdrum and skip along to their wedding and a hundred kids. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the sidelines, pining. A part of me wants to satisfy my twelve-year-old self, wants to confess my love and kiss him, just to see what happens. And then the other, more reasonable part of me wants to keep hiding.  
“I thought Dev told you?” At the mention of his name, Dev looks over my shoulder and joins this group whispering session. We must look like a bunch of morons.  
“Oh, yeah! Agatha asked Niall out!” Dev whisper-shouted right into my ear. I glare at him and shove him off and turn back to Niall.  
“That’s great but what the hell prompted that?”  
“I was going to tell you! Apparently, Snow pressured her into supporting him and dating him and she finally broke free of his abusive claws or whatever, and that she wanted someone more stable and reliable.” He grins at me again, running a self-conscious hand through his hair.  
Abusive claws? That doesn’t sound like Simon at all. Hell, he would never try and hurt Agatha, anyone could see that. I shake my head. So, she is lying about why they broke up, lying about dating me (then why ask out Niall?), and lying about Snow who can’t even defend himself against it. What the hell is going on with the golden pair? She doesn’t realize what she is messing up, I wish she would just take her prize and walk.  
“That doesn’t sound-,” I start but then I see Niall’s face fall and I sigh, “When are you meeting up with her?”  
He checks his bare wrist like he has a watch on, “Study period. We’re going to take a walk next to the Wavering Wood. I was thinking that maybe I could bring food? Like a picnic…,” He falters and then looks down at his hands.  
“Baz, I don’t think I can do this.” he sounds defeated and pity hits me like a brick.  
I reach over and hit Dev’s thigh and he peers over my shoulder again. I imagine he is wondering what the hell happened because he shoots me a salty glare. I shrug and look back at my new problem. His eyes are still trained on the ground like he is lost in his own mind.  
“I just feel like, after all this imagining and daydreaming, I’ll screw it up.” Niall shakes his head, and his waves fall to his forehead, he doesn’t bother being cautious this time, he runs a hand through, destroying the look.  
What kills me most isn’t seeing my friend doubting his chances with Agatha, but how accurately he puts me in my place. In one sentence it’s as if the breath is knocked out of me, and my twelve-year-old self gets a little louder in my head (Come on Baz! Tell him how you love him!). I feel guilty for only thinking of myself, and this raw, sick muck spawns inside my stomach like rocks.  
My voice is soft, “What can we do?” Both of their heads snap up to meet my eyes and I quirk one eyebrow in response.  
They laugh and Niall whispers, “To start, you can never do that again, and there is something that would make me feel better…”  
And that is how I end up being talked into climbing the Yew tree by the pitch with Dev while we freeze our asses off and silently support Niall as he goes on his date. I correct my previous thought to, while we spy on them as they have a romantic meal under a beautiful Yew tree. Not to mention, Dev and I spelled our clothes brown to camouflage, as the tree has no fucking leaves.  
I huff and rub my hands together, “What the fuck is taking him so long? It doesn’t take eighty years to prepare a spread of cheeses!”  
Dev nods and leans more into me, I accept and let what little heat he has surround me. It must be quite a sight, two boys seemingly balancing while cuddling high up in a tree. I only hope she doesn’t notice us as she is walking across the Pitch, or worse, she doesn’t look up during her date.  
“Amen to that. God, I wish we could’ve used a concealment spell or something instead of this,” He looks down and swallows, “This idea.”  
I chuckle but am cut short by the sound of two pairs of feet and voices approaching. We both look down and Dev let’s out a wavering breath. He’s put his left hand on my knee and the right firmly on the branch. I push my back on the trunk to get a better view of the pair.  
Niall’s laughing at something she’s said, a little too loudly and he fumbles the picnic basket that we stole from the storage room twenty minutes earlier. He takes out a basic white-and-red blanket and lays it down on the ground. Niall sits down, and Agatha follows suit.  
“Wow,” Dev murmurs, probably as taken aback as I am.  
Agatha is wearing a navy-blue dress that hits her knees and despite the weather, isn’t wearing leggings. She has several flowers tucked into her intricate braid and is wearing earrings that resemble something, Miss. Poltov might wear, but Agatha does it with more class.  
“This is beautiful, Niall. The perfect date.” She smiles and rubs her bare arms.  
Niall wastes no time, “Here, take this,” He takes off his coat and wraps it around her and as he does, a flower falls. He picks it up and tucks it behind her ear, offering her one of his winning smiles.  
I can’t help myself, I lean over to Dev’s ear and make quiet gagging noises. He stifles his laughter and elbows me in the chest.  
“…Thanks,” She looks down at her lap and fiddles with the hem of the skirt, looking sheepish, “I’m going to be honest, I wish I had done this sooner. I-,” She shakes her head.  
Niall grabs her hand and whispers something unintelligible. I want to yell down at him to speak up. If we are going to give him moral support, he may as well put on a good show. The whole point of this is that If he makes a mistake or skips out we will ridicule him for the rest of his merry days and make him miserable. Okay, so maybe that isn’t the point. But Dev and I agree that it should be.  
Dev lean back, “Did you hear that?” His back presses to my chest and I can smell his cologne, cedar and horse-shit. I shove him away.  
“No, shut up and listen.”  
“-Can tell me, I am a good listener, I promise.” We hear the tail end of his sentence and I can’t even argue with him. Niall is a good listener, he also gives good advice, it’s Dev and me that have problems with that.  
She sniffs and I think she may have started to tear up because she wipes at her cheeks and scoots towards him, so she is practically seated on his lap, “It’s such bad etiquette and I feel so horrible, but no one else will listen- it doesn’t matter. I just want to enjoy this.”  
God, she’s annoying. Just spit it out already, I never thought my vampire ass could get any colder than it already is but I’m pretty sure my lips are turning blue. I grin when Dev huffs too.  
Niall doesn’t see her sadness our way, in fact, he smiles and says, “It’s always up to you, but I just want you to know that It’s okay. We’re alone here.”  
I put a hand over Dev’s mouth when he starts to build up a wheeze of laughter. He licks it and I spit a curse into his ear. It’s honestly a surprise she hasn’t caught on to us by now, even I knew this wasn’t a good Idea. Crowley, I wish Dev and I just kicked a ball around the Pitch, it would’ve been easier.  
“Niall, you’re so sweet. I just, I,” She starts again (I’ve never known Agatha to blubber), “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. At first, it started as an accident but with Simon being, well- Simon. I couldn’t get you out of my head. I was so nervous coming here I thought that you would be a completely different person then I imagined, but Niall you are so much better.”  
Niall grins and Dev and I make even more gagging sounds. It ridiculous how good a couple they would make.  
“I had the same problem too. I thought that maybe you were doing this on Snow’s behalf or something, just to get back at me. But I knew you would never do that.” I wince as she pulls away from him a bit. It seems he doesn’t even notice, he keeps talking.  
“I feel really bad about it, knowing everything he’s put you through. Someone like you deserves someone better.” He finishes, and by that time she has wrapped her hands around his and is staring into his eyes. Cue more gagging.  
“Simon isn’t a bad person. He is just a bit obsessive… Like with his parents and that damn flower. It’s like he didn’t even want to talk to me, he had to rush here and there, always sneaking off to go into the Wood. I don’t know if I ever really loved him,” She gasps and put a hand to her mouth, “Oh my, I didn’t mean to say that.”  
“It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.” He rubs her arms slowly.  
“I don’t understand where it came from, after the attack he wouldn’t talk to anyone. He would just sit in the medical room and stare at a wall for hours, and when he did talk it would only be about the flower. K-something.” It seems like she’s starting to cry again, but then she gives a little laugh and looks up at him.  
“Is she on her period or something?” Dev whispers to me. I shrug.  
“But then you were there, Niall. And I think I realized that I liked you a long time ago, but I was too afraid to admit it.”  
Niall wraps his arms around her and they both lean against the trunk of the tree, achingly like how Dev and I are positioned.  
“We’re together now, at least,” Niall whispers and they both fall silent.  
And so, they are. For the next two hours, in fact. Dev and I end up thumb wrestling/combative hand holding. We are both so cold that any human contact is welcomed. I’m jittering so loudly, I worry Agatha might notice, I don’t know if that would be welcomed or not. I’m going with not.  
The sun had set because Niall had said: “Wouldn’t it be so romantic for us to watch the sunset?” In his stupid warm voice because of course he cast a damn warming charm on them but Dev and I left our wands in my room. I can’t even summon fire without fear we will burn the whole tree down.  
A half-an-hour before the draw-bridge comes up they finally bid each other “Farewell” with a kiss and Agatha asking if she can sit with us tomorrow while wearing his jacket. He (the prick) says yes.  
We watch her walk across the pitch before we start yelling.  
“What the fuck Niall!” Dev hollers. He spares heat to chuck a glove at him from where he sits. I laugh but am more focused on getting my foot on the icy branch below me.  
“What? It’s not like I expected it to be so long! Or so amazing…,” He stares after her long-gone form in awe. My feet make light contact with the branch, so when Dev tries to take off his shoe and throw that at Niall too, I think it would be a good idea to stop him. I reach up to touch his back and feel the branch slide out from under me.  
Wood, sky, grass and leaves spin around me for a few seconds. I hear a few shouts, but they are cut silent when my head collides with what I think is a long, dirty root. Before I know it, I’m on the ground, tumbling down the hill and into the murky water surrounding the pitch. The water seeps through my clothes.  
Niall and Dev are sliding down the hill, both snickering loud enough that I can hear it through my teeth chattering. I sit up in the muck and manage to snort out a laugh. As they reach the bottom, they jump over the puddle, but even so, they both manage to land in the mud. I drag myself out of the ditch and without the help of my two chortling minions, I stand up. My head feels light and I waver, but luckily both of them let me lean on them. After a silence that stretches on for too long, we all start laughing.  
Between wheezes, Dev yells, “I can’t believe we! Actually! Did it!” Niall whoops and abandons my side, jumping up and down in the puddles, splashing my already wet legs. I blink rapidly a few times, black spots start to spawn in my vision, but I don’t feel any different than I had before, just a slight headache.  
Dev abandons me too, joining Niall in kicking the water and screaming for all hell. I barely notice that he doesn’t have his right glove on or his left shoe. I grin, bend over, and grab a fistful of mud. Aiming at Niall’s head, the only thing going through my mind is the delightful prospect of payback.  
-  
I shuffle up to my room in a satisfied sleepy haze. We had almost run out of time before the bridge came up, but luckily we caught ourselves and ran back to our rooms. We got thoroughly scowled at by The Minotaur but were let go with a glare and a “Go shower”.  
I worry briefly that Snow might be in the room, so much that when I walk past the boy's showers I have the feeling I should use those instead. I shake my head and keep on walking, it’s not like Snow is around anymore. He is barely ever in the room, only for sleeping and even then sometimes it is half of the night. I think back to Agatha and Niall’s date, she’d been right when she said he seemed like he wanted to talk to someone else, be with someone else. Every time I try to talk to him he just ignores me and keeps his head down. Outside of delaying his project with Dev, I don’t know how I am going to be alone on November 3rd.  
When I open the door (as quietly as I can) I am met with a scowling, wide awake Snow seated on top of his desk. I walk to the bathroom, my shoes squeaking and everything chaffing, and I can feel his angry eyes on me. When I undress, I wonder what his problem is, and why he looks like such a mess. He has gained his weight back sure, but he has deep purple bags and raw, red skin. I turn the water as hot as it goes and relishes the way the mud and sweat roll off.  
Snow is in bed when I finish, which is mildly surprising and soothing considering I expected an interrogation. He told me he would figure out what I was plotting. Why isn’t he pestering me with questions? Why isn’t he following me around?  
I climb into bed and look at him. He is curled around something, head and shoulders bent to an impossible circle around it. I sit up slightly, acting like I am simply shifting in my sleep. I keep my breath silent in fear that he might hear me. On my elbow, I get the full view. It’s not an item at all, I sigh for some reason and flop back down. It’s just his arm.  
Sometime in between thinking about my mother and Snow (an odd combo, even for me), I fall asleep. This time I don’t dream, or I did but I don’t remember it. It’s deep until loud bang wakes me. I bolt up straight, pulling my wand out from under my pillow. Even if I didn’t have super-seeing I would have been able to see Snow frozen, leaning over, reaching for his fallen desk chair and clutching his foot. The early morning light is peeking through the curtains I previously closed, bouncing over his pyjama-clad legs, his naked back, and (wet?) hair.  
I throw my wand on my bed, “Merlin Snow, What are you doing?”  
“Going- going to bed, if you-u don’t mind,” he mumbles, all one incoherent word mashed together. If I wasn’t so desperate to hear him speak, I might’ve mocked him about it.  
He picks up the chair as I ask, “And you had to shower at the crack of dawn, why?”  
He freezes mid-step and rubs his forearm, the same arm that had been at the center of his little ball last night. Suddenly all the pieces are coming together. Snow never being around, Agatha saying he is always in the wood, covered in dirt, away half the night. I make the “oh” sound and we spend a long-time gazing (glaring?) at each other.  
“Mostly because yo- you! keep showering when I am supposed to,” he stresses every word, rubbing his forearm in little winding circles.  
“Snow,” I take a breath, unsure of whether I should ask him or not. I decide on not but have already said his name. if this goes wrong, it’s not like we will be together anyway, he is chosen one for Merlin’s sake!  
I take the plunge, “Snow. Are you searching for the monster that attacked you?”  
A blank silence meets me, he looks down at the ground, or maybe at his arm. When he breathes, the light flutters off his wet skin and makes it look like he is made out of gold. His eyes aren’t on me, so I take the moment to admire his back (lean, curved, a perfect place for me to run my hands). I long to fill the space but know it won’t do me any good. Play nice, Baz, maybe this will get you somewhere.  
Snow starts to shake his head but then pauses and looks up at me, “How-How do you know about that?”

“Everyone knows,” I shrug, hoping that I wasn’t lying. When I think about it, no one is talking about the monster (or demon?). The only thing they gossip about is Simon somehow hurting himself… Shit. I’ve made a mistake, I hope he’s too stupid to know. 

His eyebrows narrow, “No, no, no one knows. I- The Mage made sure of that,” He paces around the room a bit, being careful to avoid any objects, “H-how do you know?” He repeats. 

I don’t want to rat Bunce out, nor do I want to confess about the knowledge of the flower. Merlin's beard, if he is this uptight about me knowing about the monster-demon thing then I don’t want to know how he’ll react to that. I suck on my teeth, trying to think of a plausible excuse when I’m relieved of the burden. 

“It was Penny, wasn’t it!” He exclaims, his face heating up with a thick blush. He looks at me with sudden rage, “So you know about the flower too?” 

This is turning out worse than I expected. In hindsight I probably should’ve known about Simon trying to question me, I should not have asked about the damn monster. If only he didn’t seem like an angrily kicked puppy all the time, if only he wasn’t always under the Mages influence. I pause and realize I usually added If only he was single on to the end of that list. I give a small humourless chuckle at the subtraction. I should insult him, I should tell him to toss off and die for all I care. But I don’t. For some reason I can’t explain. A feeling strong in my gut, the one I have had since I was twelve (always) pulling me towards him (like the Crucible’s magic has never disappeared). I smooth the covers down over the top of my lap and say yes. 

His hand, which has been clutched in his curls falls and he stares at me. 

“What?” I shrug, acting like us having a normal conversation in our room is totally ordinary. 

“I just. I was. I,” he clenches his jaw a few times.

“Just spit it out snow,” Ah-there we go. A speck of us. 

He melts a little, “I wasn’t expecting you to be honest. It’s not like you.”

“Like you would know. What are you going to do now?” 

He stares at me for a while. His head is tipped to the side and his mouth is hanging open just slightly and his eyes are more alive then I have seen them in weeks. Maybe I should always act like this. Maybe if I had been this way since the start, we would be together somehow, or maybe just friends. I think being friends would hurt more than this, I would make more mistakes. 

“I’m going to kill it. And you won’t say anything.” He says, trying to sound tough. I wonder if he notices that his stutter goes away when he talks to me.

My mouth starts acting on its own, “Well you’ve been doing a pretty shoddy job so far. If you keep going at it how you’ve been, it's going to learn and eventually kill you.” 

“What else can I do? It threw me off a cliff, Baz… Then it followed me down and,” he rubs his arm, “What else can I do?” 

I give him a nasty grin, “Are you asking for my help, Snow?” 

He rubs his arm harder and shoots a glance at his wardrobe, “You would just like to see me fail. There is nothing in it for you. Nothing.” 

I guess it's my time for half-confessions then. “I will help you kill the creature if you take me to the flower you saw and then fuck off. Neither of us says anything to anyone.” 

He narrows his eyes, “I don’t believe you. And why do you want the flower in the first place? You’ll just find it in the club anyway…” His eyes widen, “Unless you are planning on eating it.” 

“It doesn’t matter. You will get to kill your monster, and I will get the flower. That’s all that matters. We won’t say anything to anyone then we’ll go our separate ways.” I don’t really know what I’m doing. My tongue feels like lead in my mouth and my stomach hurts so much I think I may vomit. Yet he is standing there, his shirt off with messy hair and I am sitting in bed, staring at him. It doesn’t make sense; this conversation feels almost like a dream. 

“I still don’t believe you. What’s stopping you from betraying me?” 

I huff and shove the blankets off me. Does he not know any basic spells? When I stand, I’m very (incredibly) aware I’m in nothing on my legs but boxers. If I’d went hunting last night (like I was supposed to) then I would’ve been able to flush red. Instead, my skin just becomes a splotchy, rust colour that would flatter no one (except Snow. Everything suits Snow.) I toy with the hem of my plain grey t-shirt and strut towards him. 

I may not be able to blush, be he’s sure able to. His cheeks are crimson and his eyes are dark. When I settle in front of him, my hand lingering between us, he doesn’t even notice right away. He has to shake his head, little water droplets falling on my palm. The smell of the hospital (of Simon) settles on me and I took a long breath in. 

“The spell only works if you shake my hand, Snow.” I gesture with my wand. 

He nods, then takes it cautiously. As I raise my wand, my lips barely opening to utter the spell, the sunrise brakes through the dusted fog along the ground. It hits nothing but our hands like a God is gazing down at us and telling us what is right. Not that I believe in any God. I believe in magic. No matter what anyone says, what I feel right now, for Simon, for my mother, for us working together, that is magic. 

“A gentleman’s word is his bond.” 

He rips his hand away from mine a second later, cursing in every name and word he can summon. I try not to look offended but then he turns to me and laughs, “You feel like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Kind of like… The Mages magic but on fire. Stronger somehow,” he shakes his head, not knowing how much he has affected me with that observation, and adds, “What did that do exactly?” 

“If either of us breaks our promise, we will lose our voice for a few weeks. Or our hands will cramp up. Depending on how seriously we took the oath.” 

“Okay. That’s. Okay. Should we,” My stomach flips as he pulls his lip into his mouth, “Plan?” 

I shake my head, the feeling of exhaustion running through my veins. If he was out tonight as well, he must be tired too. I turn and walk back to bed, throwing my wand on my nightstand and then crawling under the covers once more. They are still warm from my body heat. Mere minutes have gone by but as Simon turns off the lights, I can’t help but feel that everything has changed. 

_

I peer into the dining hall, the lunch rush sending people eagerly reaching for scones and tea. I had been bombed barded by Dev in the class before. His eyes had been wide, and he had this scowl/smile slit on his face, he looked on the edge of insanity. 

“Where the hell were you at breakfast?” he whispered while the minotaur droned. 

I tensed and covered it with a shrug. I couldn’t tell him what I had been really doing or thinking. I had woken up with a stomach cramp and my mouth full of my extra teeth, luckily Snow had left early for breakfast, which is the first time he’d done it without waking me. Instead of eating, which at that point was really the least of my problems, I skipped my shower and snuck down to the catacombs to drain some rats. 

I had responded with some lie about not waking up on time and having extra homework. Neither of us believed my excuses, even I could hear the how dull it sounded on my lips. He told me to come at Lunch, that If I didn’t, he would strangle me with my tie and leave me hanging in my room. 

I found out why a few minutes later when Niall and Agatha kissed in the hallway. In plain sight. I had thought they were going to be at least a little discrete, but they apparently decided to launch right into their damn honeymoon phase. I hate them for being happy, something I will never get with Simon, but despite myself, I am a little proud of Niall, and I am happy he is happy. Dev is my cousin, which means we are friends by relation. Niall didn’t have to like me, hell he didn’t even have to talk to me. But he did like me, he did talk to me, which is why we are best friends and why I have emotions over his emotions. 

As I look at him in the dining hall, happy as a ray of sunshine, I am reminded of how much I hate other people. Agatha is leaning into him, practically on his lap and twirling her long fingers in his hair while he stuffs a scone into his mouth. I can see why Dev was on the brink of insanity. He is looking down at the table now and I see his head move towards the door and flinch back behind cover. I bite my lip and wait for my heart to stop racing. I take the risk and glimpse over the wall, but this time not at my table, but at Simons. 

He isn’t there. Bunce is, sitting with a cup of tea balanced in front of her with a stack of books piled so high I can only see from her upper lip to the top of her curly bun. She is looking at them in a daze, the steam from her tea fogging up the bottom of her glasses. I take a step out into the hall, but she looks up at me, making direct eye-contact a second longer than comfortable. I turn and walk away; my hunger can wait until dinner. 

A few minutes later I am walking through the biting cold onto the frosty pitch. The air smells of snow and woodsmoke. There is a ball lost on the far side, the side I am walking to. I don’t realize that is my destination until I start kicking it around. I try to find out what I’m thinking. It feels like I’m on the edge of sleep, having little control of my mind other than the occasional nudge and tweak. 

My mother may not be out there. Her voice, which I can only remember from videos, may never reach me. I will go through all this effort, all this suffering, just to be lost. How will my father react when he finds his son dead in the woods? I wonder if Snow will bring my body back, or if he will carry the secret and let me be swallowed by the weeds. How will he react if I don’t wake up? In my mind I see him mourning over me. Never in the way my step-mother might, but in the way he has lived his whole life. A little passive-aggressive. Slamming doors, sitting on his bed looking at mine, searching for me even if he knows I am gone. It provides a wonderful image, even if I am not there to witness it. 

I kick too hard and the ball sails across the field, near a stray goat that has wandered a little too far from the pack. I stand, thinking about using my wand in my pocket to spell it back to me. I look down at my shoes, which are covered in dew and just the smallest amount of snow. I hear a swooshing sound, and the ball lands at the tips of my feet. 

I look up and see Simon looking down at the goat, a sheepish smile on his flushed face. A woman, the goatherd, saunters up behind him and laughs. She gives a small wave to me then spells the goat back to the pack. She pats Simon on the shoulder a few times, leaning in and whispering to him, in response his eyes flick up to me in surprise. She walks away with a small skip, seemingly pleased with herself. 

Instead of seeing whether Simon follows his goatherd or joins me, I pathetically punt the football forward. Is it so bad to wish that he’ll choose me? Before I can dignify myself with a response the ball comes back to me and I see a soaking pair of legs follow it. 

“Baz.” 

“Snow.”

I kick it back, a little harder than necessary just so I can see him turn to go get it. His wet uniform is clinging to his body desperately. There are grass stains on his ass and thighs, which makes me wonder if he tried to fight the monster-demon thing again or if he was just wrestling with the goats. He used to do that more when he was younger, to think of it I haven’t seen him with the goatherd for a while. 

“I need to talk to you,” the ball comes back, I stop it with my foot. 

I meet his eyes, “Then talk.” 

We both decide that we are too cold to stay out in the open, also Snow can’t stop looking into the wood with blank eyes. I start to walk back to the bridge, mostly because Snow and I have never walked side-by-side and I assume the only time we will is when we are walking to our deaths (which may be sooner than I expected). I am hoping to talk in the Courtyard, the massive fountain isn’t spewing water anymore, it is far too cold for that now. I thought it was enchanted when I was the first year, but now I know that it had sprites keeping it flowing through that first winter, that was before the humdrum turned them. I long for it now, the water frozen solid in odd shapes and swirls. Almost like a dream. 

“Hey!” Snow calls for me, and when I don’t turn, he grabs my elbow with his hand. 

A flare of something spawn in me and I pivot, “You cannot just grab someone when you want their attention. Within the high-class, it is considered rude.” 

He ignores my insult and shrugs, “Can we go to the hills? I…,” He runs a nervous hand through his hair and glares at me, “I want to watch the goats? Don’t worry, Ebb’s already inside.”

My shaking hands and stuffy nose argue with him, but the flutter in my stomach is shouting for me to follow him to the ends of the universe. Merlin, I’m in over my head. I give an exaggerated ‘lead the way’ motion with my hand and the corner of his mouth lifts. 

And then we are walking side by side, our feet moving at the same time, trails of footsteps left in the frost behind us. It’s like he can’t walk straight because he keeps bumping his shoulder into mine and instead of calling him an idiot I bump back. We just end up pressed together. Not a bad thing, considering he is radiating heat like the fireplace in my room. Except without the danger of dying. 

“I was talking to Mrs. Poltov. She told me that only ten people have eaten the petals. And that, that only two people survived,” He says clearly, not meeting my seriously pissed off eyes. She probably knows what he is doing, what he is thinking! Then she will probably trace it back to me. I’ll lose my chance. 

I stop walking, balling my fists in my coat and pushing my jaw outward, “What the hell were you thinking, Snow? She will know what we are up to… she’ll stop us, there’s no chance I’ll get to-,” I cut myself off and run my hand through my hair. 

“Baz… I didn’t tell her. I still have my voice and my hands, don’t I?” He pulls his hands out of his pockets and shoves them in my chest. I ignore them, feeling shallow and angry and so, so cold. A raw black frost spawns in my chest, like a hand grasping my heart and squeezing it until no heartbeat is left- Jokes on it, I am dead already. Stupid Niall and Agatha, who can love in public. Stupid humdrum, killing my mother and me in one fell swoop. Does the world really need to add an impossible love on top of my already chaotic mess? Does it need to throw Simon and his warm hands at me? 

As if sensing my thoughts, he forcefully clasps my hands in his, “I didn’t say a word. Listen to me! I went to talk to her about the dangers. Do you know the difference between the two people and the other eight?” 

His flushed cheeks and puckers lips beckoned me, but I shook my head at their call. 

He shouts, “They had someone with them!” He punctuates with the shake of his hands- my hands, “I’ll lead you to Kurara, you’ll help me kill it- all the same. But-but I’m not going to leave you. I don’t want you to,” A shudder passed through him, “Rot out there, animals picking away at you or whatever. That’s- that isn’t okay.” 

It serves them right, after the way I have treated them for the last several years. But even though he looks frustrated and we are holding hands (holding hands) I am struck in pure shock that he- after all I have done to him- is willing to stay by my side. Stay with me while I go see my mother. The thought of him killing me goes through my head, I am sure it went through his too but the stubborn look in his plain blue eyes sets me on course. Simon Snow cares about me. 

“I… have a plan,” I say. 

“Okay?” He swallows. I think about how little movement it would take to kiss him, about how good it would feel just for a few seconds. 

“I know it’s early, but tomorrow. Saturday. We do it tomorrow. We,” I can feel my cheeks flushing. Half my mind is focusing on being normal and the other is still freaking out that I am with Simon in a field, holding hands. 

“Spit it out, Baz. We haven’t got all day,” 

I huff, “Just give me a minute! It’s so bloody cold out here I’m having trouble thinking!” A bold lie, unfortunately, he believes it. 

“Well let’s go back to our room then, you can tell me on the way.” He turns and starts to walk away, breaking all romantic tension. When I think he isn’t looking I sigh and give the grass a little kick, In the corner of my eye, I see him grin. I shove my hands in my pockets and follow. 

We reach the bridge before I say anything. 

I exhale, my breath showing clearly in the icy air, “So, tomorrow. We’ll meet at sundown, I think that leaves us enough time to go back if we forgot anything,” I glance at him, but he is staring at the white chapel nodding along, “We’ll go for the monster thing first and then we will get the flower. If- if something happens then everyone will know something is wrong at breakfast the next day.”

Again, it is pure silence. Three bumps later and we are back at the mummer's house and people are starting to clear out of the dining hall and head towards their next classes. I suppose we should do the same, even though neither of us has our books. I thought that was the end of the conversation, him staring off into space and me waiting for attention. 

He proves me wrong, opening his mouth a few times and then starting, “Baz, I have-,” 

“What the ever-loving fuck is going on here!?” Niall yells from ten meters away, walking towards me with red cheeks and a cup of tea sloshing in his hand. 

Snow makes his way out, scuttling away without a word. I sigh inwardly and face my Enraged(?) friend. 

“What?”

“Here you are talking to Simon bloody Snow, your greatest enemy, instead of having lunch with your friends!” 

I put my palms up in mock sympathy and shrug, “I’m his greatest enemy, but he isn’t mine. Don’t confuse the two,”

When I try to close my red, chalky hands, Niall shoves the teacup forward. 

“Potato-Potatoe you evil bastard! Drink this, I noticed you looked sick in class this morning which I would have asked about at lunch IF YOU WERE THERE!” I pretend to be reluctant about taking it, but my chest warms when he hands it to me. Apparently, Snow isn’t the only one who cares. 

He rubs his arms and looks back at the hall, where Agatha, Bunce, and Dev are all chatting, “Now let's go already, everyone is waiting,” 

I raise my eyebrows at the aforementioned “Everyone” and ask, “Bunce?” 

“Agatha’s friends with her. And besides, she has next class with us anyways.” 

We walk back to the group and looking at them, a warmth spereds in my chest, but something feels off. Bunce without Simon is wrong, and the group looks incomplete without him. At the thought of Simon, I look back to the Mummers house and see a flushed, lonely face in our window. 

-  
The clouds are a gradient of blue, purple, and a deep crimson red. The sky would be beautiful if It wasn’t the signal for the night to come. I watch it from the yew tree. A few minutes early and nothing to do other than sit, warm myself, and listen to music; I whisper goodbyes to everyone that matters. Or more importantly, I tell my mother hello and my father I’m sorry. 

Simon walks across the Pitch after the sky goes black and the first star comes out. He has spelled his clothes green, a red ribbon tied to his arm almost like an afterthought. It all feels remarkably dramatic, even though I don’t even know if I am dying or not tonight. A part of me does, it knows that something big is going to happen. I can only assume the worst. 

Simon doesn’t feel the pulsing air around me and breathes, “Are you ready?” 

I nod, my lips chapped and my throat raw. 

We walk into the woods, he- the most powerful mage in the damn land, brought a flashlight. He clicks it on and flashes it around a few times before stepping in. I stay a few steps behind him while we walk, mostly because I don’t know where I am going and because he keeps stopping and having little freak-outs whenever we see something scary. Like a leaf. Or a deer. 

“Oh my god, it’s a branch, just swat it!” 

“I’m trying! It’s really thick and bendy, it keeps moving- ohmygodbazit’sasnake!” he flails back, and I spell it away. He looks up at me with a sheepish smile. I grip his arm and lift him to his feet. 

I almost don’t see it, I almost let him keep walking past the thick leaves and branches. His foot clears a patch of grass, and that’s when I see the edge. I don’t think as he steps forward, I grab and pull him back towards me. In an instant, I wrap my arms around him and he hangs on my forearms. 

I whisper in his ear, “I think we’re here.” 

“Ye-yeah. Uh, thanks for… y’know,” He swallows and squeezes my arms a little. 

I blush and pull out my wand to clear away the branches. He beats me to it and hacks them down with his sword, “Don’t you know the route by now, for all the times you’ve tried to kill this thing?” I ask as he does so. 

He pauses, “I go a different way every time. I guess the forest just wants me there?” He keeps his head down and peeks out. I can’t see, so I shove him aside and glance in. 

When I imagine a Quarry, I think of a bustling area with lots of machinery and workers. This place, well to say the least is haunted. It looks like a bunch of idiot’s left dynamite next to a campfire. Deep walls that are smooth yet jagged at the same time with tree roots that have burrowed through the stone and dirt. At the bottom, there is a pond filled with algae and weeds, and next to that are mounds of dirt with a strange, large tree. There is nothing else visible in the night and I have a feeling that I am missing something important. I see movement every once and awhile, mainly by the tree, but nothing else. 

“Where is it?” I turn back and ask.

He pushes past me and shimmies along the ledge, I panic for a second and hope he doesn’t fall, but he reaches a ledge I couldn’t see and waves me over. I follow, keeping my eyes on the ground and the flicker of light I see through the dark shadows. When I get there, I see what could be a path but also may be a waterway that has dried up. 

He scratches his head, “I made this when I first fell. It’s a little harsh on the landing but I usually land in a patch of grass,” He sits down like he is getting ready for a very bumpy waterslide and says, “Hope you don’t mind getting a little dirty.” 

He tosses the light at me, whips out his wand and before I can tell him how stupid he is, he pushes himself through the mud and down the path. 

“Snow! Simon! Shit.” 

Instead of following him down the path of absolute idiocy, I cast, “One step forward, two steps back!” and jump off the ledge. The spell only works If your eyes are closed. It creates an invisible staircase that can lead you to the ground. 

I open my eyes and see Simon crouching behind a dirt pile, covered in filth and knee-deep in water. The only way I am able to see him is by the ribbon he tied to his arm. I wonder If I should have offered him the same courtesy. 

“What are you doing?” I ask, and he turns with wide eyes to shush me. I try to see what he is looking at and stop dead in my tracks. 

A long, lanky creature is hanging upside down from the tree. With little light, I can’t see any details of its face or its body. From the waist up is a human but incredibly disproportionate, the arms hanging down, nearly touching the ground from its position. The face and neck are long too, though the face is like a squished oval rather than a circle. 

I move to crouch with Simon, and as I do, it moves too. It glides down the branch and to the trunk, I squint to see its lower body and I am tempted to shine the flashlight at it. Turns out I don’t have to. It extends one leg down to the ground and seven others follow. I hold my breath and wait for it to creep out of the shadows. 

A hybrid human-spider made of bone and pieces of flesh. If this quarry is haunted, then this must be the nightmare inside. 

Its arms hang by its sides and it beckones me with one of its legs. Before I can think my hand is raising and I am shouting, “Make a wish!” And a tunnel of fire is thrown from my wand. 

We both look at each other, Simon, holding his sword, standing alert. Me, awestruck, gripping my wand with white knuckles. We charge together. 

The rest seems to happen in sets of three. 

Simon hitting its leg, one slice, two smacks, the fire goes out. 

He’s flung to the side, I am spitting languages like vomit and spells like tears, it advances. 

My legs are taken out from under me (the dirt tastes like ash), Simon gets up, it tries to grab me (I light more fire).

It thrashes, raises its arms (high into the sky, touching the moon) and brings them down so fast my eyes don’t know what happened until they hit me square on the chest. 

There is a scream, the arms disappear, I keep casting spells. 

Simon is thrown again, this time at me, and we are soaring through the air together. Before we even land, we are hit again and this time I can see around me. Simon is speechless, his eyes are closed, and his sword is gone. Watford is in the distance and next to the quarry, where that thing is waiting, there is a clearing with a speck of light. 

Then we are falling. It feels even worse than I prepared myself for, I swallow my throw-up while I wrap my arms around Simon. He squeezes me and whispers something in my neck. 

We are halfway to the ground- ten seconds. He whispers it again. 

“What?” I shout.

He yells it this time, loud and frustrated, the words sailing off his tongue, “On love’s light wings!” 

I lean into him, wanting to die on his lips, but we slow and then steady. He is looking around rapidly, we are being lowered to the ground each second. I look down and see the monster circling us, growling. 

“There!” I point to the clearing, the adrenaline thrumming in my ears. 

He smiles, and we soar. 

-

The landing is, to quote Simon earlier, “A little harsh”. There must’ve been an animal or something that glowed because when we landed, the light went out immediately. I think we might’ve landed on it, but there is nothing but a few weeds and rocky patches. 

“That is what you’ve been fighting?” We’re laying, looking at the cloudy night. 

“I- not really. Kind of. Yes, yeah.” He sits up and looks down at me. The moon is behind his head and the light is encasing his curls like a halo. I reach up but think better of it, and let it fall. 

“I guess the deal is over then. I couldn’t kill it… no flower.” 

“No. We can do this. Flower first, is all. We’re going to do this.”

He gets up and walks around, orienting himself. He doesn’t see me grin into my palms. I love him, more than my mother, my father, more than anyone. He is the only person who, even when I couldn’t hold up my side of the deal, would still help me. Selfless and an asshole at the same time. He’s so far from perfect. I love Simon Snow. 

He stands by the edge, looking at the creature settle itself again. He runs his fingers through his hair. Muttering and shaking his head he turns back to me. 

“I don’t get it. It usually, it calls out to me, I can hear it. Sometimes, when I listened hard enough…,” He squeezes his eyes shut. He kicks a rock into the dark a few seconds later, growling and pacing. 

My voice is hoarse still, the cold is rubbing me raw and the adrenaline is fading. “What is it?” 

He hesitates but maintains eye contact with me. His focus keeps switching between my eyes like he is trying to find an answer in me. If only he knew how many times, I gave him the same look, how many times I covered it with a sneer. If he could see as I could, he would know of the countless nights I stared at him, asking him the unanswerable question, Why you? 

“She talks to me. A woman. She… she tells me things sometimes. Mostly she just sings to me.” 

“Is she another creature too? Does she lead you to the flower? I don’t,” I shake my head, “I don’t understand.” 

“Baz, she is the flower.” 

It takes me too long to catch up with his words. It feels like I am running down a hill, my head getting ahead of itself and my body struggling to catch up. He has been talking to the flower. Talking to a woman. What if, what if it's my mom? He can’t find her now; will he ever be able to? Mrs. Poltov never said anything about talking flowers. What if it isn’t the same one? Maybe I followed a complete fool down a rabbit hole just because I was so desperate for one last word. 

I spin, and spin, and spin. 

“You lied.” 

He jerks forward, stumbling to where I sit on the musty dirt floor and collapses. I don’t want him near me, I want to leave and swear him to hell. But my body aches and my head hurts. And for once, I’m willing to listen. 

“No. No! I didn’t. I want that thing dead. I want it gone. But I could see that you, that whoever you needed to talk to was more important than a repeating recording! I tried to tell you, then I thought what you wouldn’t know wouldn’t harm you, and then I thought, I thought that you didn’t deserve it and I should have it,” He grabs my shoulders roughly. I fall towards him like a rag doll and my head ends up in his hands. He won’t stop looking at me, desperately searching me. I try and give him some of my answers wordlessly. 

“But it didn’t work last time. I knew I couldn’t keep her, that was selfish. You’re so smart Baz. You- you deserve everything you work for. I don’t work for anything. I’m thrown here and there and ordered around but you do the ordering! You’ll fix the humdrum and the families and when I’m gone, you’ll fix the world of mages! I don’t deserve her,” 

Last time? Last time. My mind races and I’m standing and pacing. His self-hate, his anger fuels me. If he (the love of my life and strongest mage alive) thinks I can do anything, then what’s stopping me? 

I ask, “Last time?” 

He gets up too, his eyes lighting up and his breath quickening, “I picked a petal, to see if I could take her everywhere…”

“A petal?”

“A petal.” 

“Do you know what it takes to grow another flower?” 

He beams, “Let me guess, A petal?” 

 

-

 

Simon Snow

I could tell he is scared. He keeps doing this blinking thing with his eyes where he looks like he is blinking slowly, gets half way and then opens them again. His hair is all pointed and up in segments and dirt is covering parts of his face. I smile, and he looks at me with a light scowl.  
“You look like a cat, Baz,” I whisper. I think I must’ve really been off the boat because my hand reaches up on its own and I run my fingers through his hair. Maybe what Ebb said was right, the people I love most are the ones I push away. He leans into me, all the while telling me to toss off. I smile wider, feeling cleaner than I have in years.  
He looks down at the petal clasped in his hands. I hadn’t thought of it as a lifesaver at the time. I thought it was a disappointment. When I tucked it in that atlas and shoved it in my closet it was more a reminder of how dumb I could be. I lean back on my heels and ball my hands in my pant legs. You can see Watford just through the trees, but we don’t dare go any further into the Wood, I don’t want to see that Thing again. I shiver and focus on the light streaming through the leaves. While the rest of them are sleeping, we are out here, planting a flower.  
“Are you sure about this?” He asks me, all raspy and sore. I nod and start to dig the small hole with my hands. I can feel the dirt wedging itself under my fingernails.  
My fingers are so cold they clench up, the seriousness of the situation gets at me and I mutter, “Welcome to the Watford Gardening club, where you’ll dig holes in the dead of night to speak to dead people,” When Baz chuckles, everything seems like it might be worth it.  
Once I finish, I have a small hole about the size my fist could fit into. He lay’s the petal down inside then he alternates between watering it and sprinkling dirt over top of it. Once the hole is filled over, he empties the last of the can. We sit together, staring at a patch of ground for a few minutes, I worry it isn’t going to grow. Baz has his determined look on, with his brow furrowed and his lips slightly puckered. I wonder if I should grab his hand before it’s too late.  
As I stare at him, a soft blue light emerges from the ground and I can hear a familiar whisper from the core, “My rosebud boy… my sweet rosebud boy,” she is the moon on a cloudy night, the raincloud on a hot day. She is my relief, my calm. I swallow temptation to talk back and say goodbye.  
We look at each other, and it’s like we have the same thought because we both reach for the flower and pull it out. Before the blue light can go out, he shoves the petals into his mouth and chews. I see him gag a bit, eyes watering, but then he swallows.  
His hand rises to his throat and he flops down to his side, he’s struggling for breath. I lean over and grab his shoulder’s. I push him down to the ground on his back and lean over him. He starts to shake. It starts in his hands, a slight tremor, then it gathers itself until he is full-out flailing. He comes to an abrupt stop, and somehow, I know he’s crossed over.  
I stare down at him and start to count. At first in my head but when I reach my second 60, I keep it going out loud. It’s probably more accurate anyway; my stutter and slur are bound to slow me down to normal time.  
“58, 59, 60,” I chant for the fourth time, keeping track on my fingers. Mrs. Poltov said that everyone who survived was in the veil for less than five minutes. If he doesn’t wake up soon, he will be more likely to die than not. I wonder if I could spell him awake, Penny said that wouldn’t work, because he isn’t just asleep, he is literally out of his body. I think she underestimates the power I have. Or maybe she was simply thinking of the normal magician’s power. It’s not like she knew I was going to be doing this tonight. I didn’t even know I was going to be doing this. Ever. He starts to mumble when I reach five minutes. Little things come out kind of like a groan. Half words I can’t understand until one word came out loud and clear.  
“Simon,”  
I stop counting and swallow. Is that a cue for me to try and wake him up? Or is it something else? How would I wake him up? What spell?  
“Simon,” he says again, this time like it hurt him more to say it, what I imagine he would sound like if he was taking his last breath. I never thought my greatest enemy might die with my name on his lips.  
He won’t. I lick my lips and smile, nothing could beat a line from fairy tales, right? Stories and rhymes told all over the globe are more powerful than anything. I take my eyes off his pale, lean face for one second to look for my wand, and as I do, he shouts my name. I jump and whip back to face him. He looks the same, but his body has started to tremor again. I turn around and search the grass. I find it, half buried under some leaves a few paces away. I grip it like a lifeline and pull myself next to Baz’s side.  
I wind my fingers through his and squeeze. His hand is limp in mine. I take a deep breath in and pray that my magic works for once. If not for him, then for me.  
I lean over him, my lips hovering over his and even though my stomach is twisting in knots I keep going. I point my wand at his chest and draw in as much as I can.  
“True love’s kiss!” I whisper against him. I don’t know if I should kiss him before or after, but I take the plunge and kiss him with as much as I can, even if he is cold and stone-like beneath me.  
I don’t think the spell worked, but his hand twitched in mine, so I keep kissing him. I throw my wand away, and after a moment of consideration, let my cross follow. He stays the same, so I wind my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer. I try again. Every moment my lips aren’t on his I say the spell again, even if it is quiet. I picture a door opening in my chest like my magic is behind and it is banging to get out. I open it, I let it flow through me and to Baz, wherever his soul may be. I let it guide him home.  
I worry that someone will see. I worry what they might say, what they might think. I squeeze my eyes closed and shove all I can into him, the world around me feels like it’s on fire. I keep going, damning him to hell and back. I don’t care if he wants to wake up or not, he’ll do it anyways. I’ll make him. I’m kissing a lifeless body in the woods, covered in dirt and muck and hate, and he has the damn courage to stay asleep? Let me take the blame for killing him? Fuck. No.  
I grab both sides of his face, take a breath of air and growl, “True love’s kiss goddamnit!” The whole thing comes out as a spell and without my wand, I think it won’t work, but then I kiss him again and something feels different.  
He pushes back.  
I immediately withdraw, my cheeks heating slightly as I ask, “Are you okay? Did it work? What happened?” He blinks up at me blearily and open’s his mouth then closes it again. I help him sit up, and I expect him to speak but he just touches a fingertip to his lips.  
He looks at me with wide eyes for a few seconds, then whispers, “You kissed me.” 

Baz Grimm-pitch 

He splutters, “I had to! And besides, you’re the one who wouldn’t wake up! Now tell me what happened! 

I shake my head and try to process my thoughts. It hadn’t felt like falling asleep, it felt like there was a hand clenched around my stomach, pulling me through my belly button. I pictured an umbilical cord, still attached to her, leading me to her. I was drawn past everything I knew, yet I could still hear Simon shivering and counting. 

It took a few seconds for her to appear. She didn’t have a body, neither did I, but our voices remained. I called out. I screamed. Nothing would come out of me but the trace of a whisper. 

“Basilton. My son. Find my killer, for he still walks. Find Nicodemus, he’ll show you the way,” She paused and then there was a flash. A moment where I could see myself as a baby being held in her arms, her voice carrying along the nursery room walls. My father was behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, joining in on the chorus. 

“I love you.” 

Then she drew away and started from the beginning. My words meant nothing to her. Maybe she couldn’t hear, maybe I wasn’t supposed to talk. I tried to talk to her, and I thought I was getting louder, she would pause when I spoke, she started to give me feelings in response. But the louder I became; the quieter Simon was. 

That’s when I thought I would die. When I started shouting his name, trying to pull myself out. I would call for him, tell my mother I loved her, then call again. When every part of me lit up, it didn’t feel like I was finding my way back, it felt like I was being ripped back into my body. 

And I had missed my first kiss with Simon Snow. Unbelievable. 

“Baz? Who did you see? Who did you talk to?”

I take his hands in mine, the forest closing in around me, the air being pushed out of my chest. We hobble out of the wood to sit on the edge of the Pitch. Both of us are soaked. Simon’s pants are frozen, and I am pretty sure his fingertips are blue. I squeeze his hands harder. 

“I talked to my mother. She told me that her killer walks. Find Nicodemus and he will lead the way.”

“What does that mean? Who is Nicodemus?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it now. I can’t. I,” I drag myself up next to him, “You will help me catch her killer.” 

He wraps his arms around my waist, as my father did to my mother, “Couldn’t you just ask for my help?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I would say yes.” 

“Are you saying no?”

He laughs, it’s a little forced but he draws me closer until we are lip to lip and whispers, “I’ll help you find whoever killed your mother. As long as you don’t try and die again.” 

“Deal.” And instead of a handshake, we seal it with a kiss. 

 

The end.


End file.
